Renaissance Technologies (also called RenTech or RenTec) is an investment management firm founded in 1982 by James Simons and Howard Morgan. Renaissance Technologies designs and executes its investment programs using mathematical and statistical methods. ¹ Renaissance Technologies manages more than $106 billion in assets as of early 2024. ²

Renaissance Technologies is known for its Medallion Fund, considered one of the most successful hedge funds in history. The Medallion Fund generated 62% in annualized returns between 1988 and 2021. Since 1993, the Medallion Fund has been closed to investors outside of Renaissance Technologies. ³

Renaissance co-founder James Simons is a major Democratic political and left-of-center advocacy-philanthropy donor; former CEO Robert Mercer is a notable donor to Republican candidates and right-of-center advocacy groups. ⁴

Leadership Politics

Renaissance co-founder James Simons is a major Democratic political and left-of-center advocacy-philanthropy donor; former CEO Robert Mercer is a notable donor to Republican candidates and right-of-center advocacy groups. ⁵ In 2016, Renaissance Technologies cofounder James Simons and then-co-CEO Robert Mercer were both in the top ten of individual contributors to federal campaigns, with Simon contributing more than $26 million to Democrats and Mercer contributing more than $25 million to Republicans. ⁶

As of February 2024, after Mercer left the firm, most contributions associated with Renaissance Technologies or its employees in the 2024 election cycle were to Democratic candidates and political action parties. People reporting the company as their employer made a $2.5 million contribution to the Senate Majority PAC along with contributions to super PAC American Bridge 21st Century and the Democratic National Committee. Contributions have also been made to U.S. House candidates Nancy Goroff (D-NY), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), and Lois Frankel (D-FL), and to U.S. Senate candidates Jon Tester (D-MT), Bob Casey (D-PA), and Sherrod Brown (D-OH). ⁷

Tax Dispute

In 2014, Renaissance Technologies was included in an investigation by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) regarding the taxation of the Medallion Fund’s transactions. The IRS argued that the Fund’s basket option trades should be taxed at the higher short-term capital gains rate instead of the lower long-term capital gains rate and would involve ten years’ worth of trades. In 2021, the settlement was estimated to cost Renaissance Technologies as much as $7 billion in taxes and penalties. ⁸

People

Peter Brown is CEO of Renaissance Technologies. Brown formerly worked as language technology expert at IBM and currently sits on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Simons Foundation, the private philanthropy of Renaissance co-founder James Simons. ⁹

Robert Mercer is a former co-CEO of Renaissance Technologies. Mercer is a politically conservative donor who in 2016 contributed $25 million in support of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and other Republican campaigns. ¹⁰

Howard Morgan is a cofounder and former president of Renaissance Technologies. As of February 2024, Morgan was the chair and general partner of B Capital. Considered one of the pioneers of early-stage investing, Morgan is a cofounder of First Round Capital and Idealab. ¹¹

James Simons is a cofounder of Renaissance Technologies and chair of the Simons Foundation. Simons formerly worked as a cryptanalyst at the Institute of Defense Analyses, formerly taught mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, and is a former chair of the mathematics department at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Simons is the founder and chair of Math for America and a trustee emeritus of the Institute for Advanced Study. ¹² Simons is a Democratic donor and has an estimated worth of $30.7 billion. ¹³

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